“If there can be such different life experiences, expectations, and vocabulary from one generation to the next, how much more so across two thousand years of church history? Perhaps we should lean in and listen more carefully to questions about the Messiah. So let’s back up and ask a simple question: Are Jesus Messiah and Jesus Christ the same thing?”- Kyle Idleman and Mark E. Moore
In Chapter 4 (“Morphing the Messiah”) of The Missing Messiah, Kyle Idleman and Mark E. Moore begin by explaining how to play “Beat the Parents.” The game asks kids a series of questions that parents wouldn’t know. Think Pokémon and Minecraft. Similarly, parents answer questions likely to befuddle kids. Think yellow pages or characters from Friends or Seinfeld.
Certainly, it’s fun to play the game. But the game also allows family members to get to know each other across generations. Thus, life experiences, expectations, and vocabulary differ from one generation to the next. So, the authors reason, even greater differences exist across more than two thousand years of church history.
Hence, Kyle and Mark continue:
“Let’s back up and ask a simple question: Are Jesus Messiah and Jesus Christ the same thing? They used to be, during the early decades of Christianity. But as Christianity shifted from a Jewish sect to a global faith, it changed how Messiah was understood.”
However, the authors point out, possessing the same dictionary definition doesn’t mean Messiah and Christ hold the same connotation in everyday life. To Jews and Gentiles, the terms sounded very different.
Because Jews looked for a political figure to rescue the nation from foreign oppression. For Gentiles, though, Christ served as a title for Jesus the Savior. Most significantly, as Gentiles soon outnumbered Jews in the early church, the title Christ overshadowed the title Messiah.
Today’s question: Do you see Jessu Messiah and Jesus Christ as the same thing? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Hollywood diva transformations”